Page 11
Digitization #Slaves. Heroin. Biotech. #Organisms, medicines, living computers in your tissue #"What's VersaLife trying to develop?" "The second man." #Olaf Stapledon ##19 species of human beings #"Every ruler needs a power base." #Superfreighters -- enough to infect a continent #Hybrid -- viral proteins and nanomechs ##Infectious augmentations? ##Ambrosia fits into virus like a hardware lock ##Mod ambrosia functionality, can't destroy virus #How does Harley Filben fit in? #Riots -- NYC under martial law #Boccacio's Decameron #"So, speaking only for kwesi, I'm going to invite about 80 or so of my nearest and dearest -- soon to be nearer and dearer -- with all the food and recreational drugs they can carry, then lock the doors. Good night, children!" ##''SOCIETY: PARTY AGAINST TOMORROW'' Analysis #Unsurprising, may explain the captain's need to evade patrols outside. The Red Arrow's girls at the lucky money are all kidnapped from Thailand or the Philippines. #VersaLife smuggles some of their products on sampans due to trade restrictions in the United States and European Union. Genetics and nano-augs are also smuggled (extremely odd -- nanoaugs haven't yet been introduced globally, as there are only five (known) or so on the planet). I'm made to wonder how Jaime was able to legally acquire an augmentation canister then. Perhaps an exception was granted through the UN. #Deep. See: statue in intro cutscene. #Stapledon was a noted 20th century author and philosopher. Last and First Men is cited as one of the best SF novels ever written. It deals with 19 different species of men, of which ours is the first, the prototype. "The Second Man", mentioned earlier, is a larger, smarter, older man than our current species. And so the cycle restarts and continues for millenia over the course of the book. Seems like a fascinating read. #True statement; it's what makes the powerful, well, powerful. The Majestic 12 have nothing to use against the people directly, only subversive methods through different fronts, and, of course, enough Gray Death to infect a continent. #That's a ton of virus; it is to be sprayed from helicopters over metropolitan areas such as New York and DC, ensuring the death of almost everyone but those protected by ambrosia. "The Second Man" seems a more likely scenario the further in we go here -- perhaps the Gray Death doubles as a population control method? Perhaps a setup for a coup-de-etats of augmented humans against the species of pure ones so as to not have a repeat of the 2020's and 30's civil unrest surrounding mechanical augmentations? Or has resource consumption and population placement and size grown so wildly out of hand that human numbers must be culled? #More like an airplane and a payload; the nanomech is just a transport, replication, and delivery mechanism for the virus. ##This is a very likely scenario that is, unfortunately, never pulled from the subtext. The Gray Death may have been a botched attempt to infect people with augmentations, only it went horribly awry. That's my two cents. ##Only those who can afford "keys" will survive the plague. It probably needs to be diluted or synthesized first in order for uncontrolled replication (using the host as a UC) to be a minimal to nonexistent threat. #Good question; "how did Filben get mixed in with the Illuminati" is almost parallel to "how did Simons get mixed in with Page". #Frightening concept. The Yankee Stadium public crematorium, mentioned elsewhere, is also a crazy idea. Very dark indeed. #The Decameron, written by Giovanni Boccaccio in the 14th century, is a collection of 100 stories, similar to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Cited in a newspaper, "a bunch of young, hottie Florentines decided to flee another one of these boring little plagues and hole up with a few too many bottles of wine, tell outrageous stories, and have a go at each other once in a while."; great, great reference. #"SOCIETY: PARTY AGAINST TOMORROW" is one of the best phrases in the entire game. Something about this rings a bell, but I'm not sure which one or why. Page 12 Category:Project Pages Category:Key Pages